When my Great Great Grandfather Was Imprisoned

May 17, 2015 by oldageisnotforsissies54 Filed Under: Genealogy, Travel 3 Comments

All week long I’ve been at the National Genealogical Society’s Annual Conference in St. Charles, Missouri. It has been a great week, and I have learned so much about conducting genealogical research.

On Tuesday after Chuck flew back to Florida, I took a little trip across the Mississippi River to Alton, Illinois. I went there to search for the military prison where my great-great-grandfather John Wesley Roe was imprisoned during the Civil war.

I found Alton, Illinois to be a very interesting and pretty city. It sits directly on the east bank of the Mississippi. Near the water is a factory, and later I found out they make flour there. There are many silos around the plant. Once in the streets, though, you do not notice the plant down on the water. They have done a good job of fixing up their waterfront areas.

I drove directly to the corner of Broadway and William Street, which is a street that runs behind the building at the end of the street in the photo above. Up William Street and to the left was a small patch of ground next to a public parking lot. On this ground stood the ruin of a wall, a block wall. This is all that is left today of the Alton prison.

I know from research that this is where John Wesley Roe and his two brothers were taken after being captured. John Wesley was 32, and the other two were 28 and 22.

All three men fought under the 36th Georgia as privates. In a heavy skirmish outside of Calhoun, Georgia around 6 p.m. on May 16, 1864, 1,470 Army of Tennessee Confederates were captured during fighting on that day. John Wesley Roe’s brothers Columbus and William were two of those men.

The following day May 17, 1864 John Wesley himself was captured. All three of the Roe men were now prisoners of war. It occurred to me that John Wesley may not have wanted to go home to his mother after leaving his two younger brothers with the Yankees. Like me, he was the oldest.

All three were sent to this prison in Alton, Illinois. They arrived here on May 23, 1864. The prison had been abandoned before the war but had been reopened.

From stories I’ve read of veterans who were brought here, it appears that they came to this place by rail. Since John Wesley and his brothers were probably first taken to Chattanooga, though and since the Tennessee River runs from there all the way to the Mississippi, I’m wondering if they may have been brought here by ship. Both were possible.

John Wesley and his brothers William and Columbus, who was also known as Barefoot, survived their time at this prison. When they first got here, there were about 6,000 other prisoners. Bunks were seven high, and the men slept three to a bunk. I imagine the three brothers shared a bunk and tried to keep each other warm during those cold winter nights. Bed bugs and lice were a constant harassment.

The kiosks did a good job of explaining what prison life was like here. The boys found the prison overcrowded and its sanitation inadequate. Conditions in the prison were harsh, and the mortality rate was above average for a Union prison. There was a constant fear of dysentery, pneumonia, and small pox. Poor nourishment and inadequate clothing were common. The only exercise they got was while wearing a ball and chain on work detail.

They got here in the spring so hopefully the weather was pleasant; but the hot, humid summer conditions that followed probably seemed like hell to these north Georgia mountain boys. The following cold mid-western winter was probably rough because of their inadequate clothing.

The boys were here about eight months, until sometime just before February of 1865, when they were parolled and transferred for exchange at the Bouleware and Cox Wharves in James River, Virginia. The actual exchange, though, didn’t take place until between May 6 and 9th, 1865 at the end of the war. Somewhere while in route, President Lincoln was as killed in April. I wonder when they heard the news.

I took lots of pictures including a self portrait sitting in one of the windows. I wondered if one of the boys might have set here, too.

Then I found a little restaurant right around the corner and enjoyed my lunch. While I was eating my sandwich and salad, I remembered what the kiosk had said about food being a problem. Here I sat in a much better time and a much better place while 149 years ago hardly a block away my great-great-grandfather and his brothers never got enough to eat. One of the veterans remembered that he was always hungry.

My greater east grandpa John Wesley Roe returned from the war to his wife and five children. In 1866, he had another son who he named after his two brothers William and Columbus. William Columbus Roe is my great grandfather. I don’t have a picture of John Wesley, but below is one of his son William Columbus.

Just up the hill from where the small little park now sits with its ruin, once stood the entire prison. It looked down on the Mississippi River about two blocks away. My grandfather and his brothers probably stood at its windows and looked longingly at the river flowing south, wondering if they would ever get back to their homes in Georgia.

Never Been to Peducah?

May 12, 2015 by oldageisnotforsissies54 Filed Under: Genealogy, Travel 4 Comments

This is a continuation of the story of William H. Andrews who was with the 4th Florida Regiment during the Civil War. He was wounded and then captured at the Battle of Stones River. When his unit retreated along with the rest of Bragg’s army, William was left behind and taken prisoner by the Union troops.

Most of Sunday was spent driving, but we did answer one question about William before leaving Nashville. As you’ll remember, we knew that during the Civil War he was moved from a hospital in Murfreesboro to a hospital in Nashville. We planned to do some research at Nashville’s Public Library to see if we could find where he was taken there.

Here are highlights of our day on Sunday.

1. Finding in Nashville where the Union took Prisoners of War who were wounded and needed medical care.

Actually, we didn’t find this information in the Nashville Library. I found it online early Sunday morning. I went online to search for what might be available at the library in preparation for later. Instead, I stumbled on the information in an article which discussed the burials of wounded Confederate prisoners of war who died in Nashville hospitals.

It said that Confederate prisoners were usually treated at Hospital No. 1, which consisted of a converted church and a former gun factory at the current intersection of Third Avenue South (formerly College Street) and the westbound I-265 on ramp. The article was fairly old.

So we went in search of the site. First we looked for I-265 and 3rd Street Avenue South. We found where the latter almost intersected an interstate, but it wasn’t 265 or even 65. In fact there didn’t seem to be a 265 anywhere. We asked someone, and they said that what is now I-40, used to be I-265.

So we drove down there, but found nothing but buildings that were built at a much later date. It seemed to be an industrial area. The area set right next to the on ramp, so we were sure we had found the site. We took a picture, hopped on the interstate and began driving north to St. Louis, where I planned to attend the National Genealogical Society conference next Wednesday.

2. Who is William?

One of my readers asked me for more information on William. William is a secondary, but an important secondary character in my book. He is Mary Adeline Walker’s husband. His full name is William H. Andrews; and he and Mary are my great-great-great grandparents through my Grandfather Lester Hamrick’s lineage.

I am still learning about William, but here is what we know. William was born in 1811 in Georgetown, Washington, DC. It appears that his parents owned a retail establishment there, possibly a tavern and inn. We are not sure where William was educated, but we have a copy of his handwriting. It is beautiful, so we feel certain he was an educated man. Below is a copy of a page from the 1850 Jefferson County Census. He was the census enumerator. There is still much research needed on him prior to his move to Florida, but it won’t be needed for this book because this book is mostly about Mary and the settling of middle Florida.

We know that William was in Florida by 1825, because he shows up in Leon County territorial census prior to that date. Jefferson County, where we know he lived later, was not established and was a part of Leon County, Florida at that time. By 1842, one of his daughters was christened in the Monticello Presbyterian Church, so we know that the family had moved to Monticello by that date. His wife died, and we next find him through a marriage certificate when he married Mary A. Walker late in 1843.

In the records are several bonding papers for several different appointments, including Justice of the Peace, Deputy Sheriff and County Auctioneer. Later in the 1850s he was elected Sheriff of Jefferson County. He was also a railroad agent for a length of time. His home was near the Bellamy Plantation on what is today Bassett’s Dairy Road, though we know he also lived in Monticello on several occasions.

In 1861 he was Sergeant of Arms in the Florida House of Representatives, and he was present when Florida seceded from the nation and joined the Confederacy. He enlisted soon after and was placed in the 4th Florida at the age of 49.

He already had five children when he married Mary, and by the time of the War they had had ten more. Several of his sons also went to War.

I’ll stop here, because any further information will be a spoiler for the book.

3. Finding Paducah, Kentucky

We didn’t need to stop here for any genealogy work, but it was a halfway point between Nashville and St. Louis. We drove into their downtown area to dine and take a walk after dinner. The town sits at the confluence of the Tennessee and Ohio Rivers. The riverfront was a wonderful place to take an evening stroll. There is a flood wall that has been painted with murals, and they are wonderful. There are plaques which explain what you’re seeing. It is a walk through Paducah’s history, which is very colorful. Chuck and I were glad that we visited. Neither of us had ever been to Paducah.

Oh Hey, Friday!! Check Out Our Trip Across the Gulf South

February 13, 2015 by oldageisnotforsissies54 Filed Under: Travel 2 Comments

This is in response to September Farm and her “Oh Hey, Friday”, where she asks her readers/bloggers to write up a little post about five things–anythings.

Chuck and I were in Bayfield, Colorado, where we were living for a month. We got there after driving all the way from Florida, stopping to sightsee and visit relatives along the way.

Here’s my five highlights as we crossed the southern states of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas.

1. If you have never been to the Flora-Bama Lounge, you have missed the ultimate “beach bar”. Chuck and I decided to drive coast roads on our way to Bayfield, and we stopped here about 4 pm on a Sunday for a true slice of Americana and a gin and tonic. Located on the Florida/Alabama state line on Perdido Key, in one hall there was an old classic country trio playing and singing. The female lead singer did Patsy Cline songs and was great. In another hall was a band doing southern rock. Downstairs in the open air bar was a third band. We left Perdido Key by ferry crossing Mobile Bay and arriving on Dauphin Island, Alabama.

2. In Biloxi the coast road runs by the Hurricane Katrina Monument. We stopped to take a look. The memorial at 22 feet high is as tall as the storm surge that ravaged this beach city. In the glass case is a collage of items salvaged in the clean-up–a kid’s baseball trophy, a broken ship’s wheel, pieces of china, a weathered book, and hundreds more. On the black polished granite stone are etched names of the deceased. It is sobering, especially to those of us who live near the waters edge and have to contend with the possibility of one of these monstrous storms.

3. When we crossed the state line driving from Mississippi into Louisiana, we drove west on old US 90. This is a stretch of road that time forgot. There was hardly any traffic, and the road or bridges haven’t been repaired in a long time. We loved the old metal bridges, which reminded Chuck and I of our childhood. This is truly a wonderful stretch of blue highway. By the way before interstates, US 90 was the ultimate highway for crossing the American south. It ran from Jacksonville Beach, Florida all the way to Los Angeles, California. I grew up on US 90 in a little north Florida town called Monticello, and it was always a busy highway. Imagine how much traffic this old road used to see.

4. Another stretch of highway that time forgot runs as close to the coast as you can get between Abbeville, Louisiana and Port Arthur, Texas. It reminded us of crossing the Florida Everglades on the Tamiami Trail when we were young. Hardly any traffic, no homes, no stores, no gas stations, and very little room to even pull off the road, SR 82 is raised and runs between marshes until you get to a seaside oil town named Cameron, LA., which was ravaged by another hurricane and the evidence remains. Then we crossed a major canal on a ferry, and the scenery changed to miles of cattle pastures on one side and beaches on the other side. We crossed into Texas just before Port Arthur, whose downtown is a ghost town, literally. It had a lot of abandoned multi-story buildings. By the way we googled to read about these areas. You won’t find any tourist signs for information. Remember these are areas that time has forgotten.

5. This is where we decided to turn north, because we are after all headed to Colorado. We love to see other state’s farming communities, so we headed across East Texas driving on their little roads that are marked “Farm Roads”. East Texas looks like central north Florida with rolling hills, oak trees, lots of pine forests, red clay and sand. Best stop though was Hemphill, TX with its NASA museum. This is the tiny town where the Shuttle Discovery’s debris came down, including the bodies of its seven astronauts. Their story is amazing, and it will touch your heart. This may be the best stop of our entire trip; this little town of about 5,000 people with its courthouse square and its amazing story about how a little town took care of 20,000 volunteers for 16 days.

Well, that’s my five! The drive took us a week, but we’re retired so what’s a week??

Why I’m Stressing Over Hurricane Irma & Marco Island

October 28, 2014 by oldageisnotforsissies54 Filed Under: Family Life, Travel 4 Comments

We just watched the massive Hurricane Irma rake over Marco Island on Florida’s west coast. We’re worried.

Chuck and I were dating when he first told me about this special room he had had at the Marco Island Marriott. I stayed at that hotel about twelve years earlier when it was newer. I wondered if the hotel still had the charm I found back in 1976 when I was a 22-year old executive secretary working for a flash in the pan lobbying and association management firm called Pulse, Inc. By Chuck’s description, it was.

> He described the room as a two-bedroom suite overlooking a wide beach with its stairs leading down to a restaurant nearby. I tried to picture it in my mind, but my room while there in the mid-70s was called a Villa, and I didn’t remember any second floors in that part of the hotel.

> Chuck and I continued to date, married and spent the next twenty-five years coming to this room at the Marco Island Marriott. Our children grew up coming with us to Lanai Suite 193, and now they are bringing their children. The hotel later named it the Bora Bora Suite.

> There are so many stories and so many memories, like the day I decided to send a load of clothes to the laundry and they billed us $79. I was afraid to tell Chuck how stupid I had been. Or the time our son figured out that his room key was a blank check to anything he wanted to do at the resort. That bill included an ice cream party for him and some of his buddies at the little ice cream shop on the premises. He said, “just order what you like, the hotel is free for my family”. It wasn’t; we were just on an expense account. He obviously didn’t realize that only Chuck’s carefully weighed expenses were reimbursed.

> Chuck’s mother came frequently over the years, and we were floored one day when she showed up after being missed for over an hour with a picture of her dangling from a para-sail. She was 78 years old, wore the room’s clear shower cap to keep her beautiful gray, quaffed hairdo from getting wet, and charged the $75 to our room. I guess she thought it was free, like our son. Chuck, also known as the wallet by our kids, paid the tab anyway, overjoyed by the spontaneity of his mom.

>The last year we were there my sister and her two daughters came, and my other sister’s daughter made the trip several times, too. The room is bigger than some people’s homes. It has two very large bedrooms, and you could parallel park a semi in its long living room with its wall of windows overlooking the beach. There is a large conference size dining room table that will seat 10 to 12 comfortably, The suite even has its own gym with a treadmill that we never use, because why would you run on that thing when a walk on the beach is right out your door.

> Our bath attached to the master bedroom is bigger than most RVs. The jacuzzi tub is too big for just one person, and you can shower five giggling girls at one time in the walk in shower with its six jets and overhead rain shower.

> The kitchen is in a room by itself with a microwave and frig. We bring lots of soft drinks, snacks, and quick foods for the kids who dine in mostly throughout the week. We even bring a blender and make our own piña coladas using fresh pineapple, milk, coconut extract, bananas, ice, and rum. We usually have at least one dinner there with colleagues who have been coming to this conference as long as we have. Like ours, all their kids grew up meeting each summer at the Marco Marriott.

> We have been through three renovations and redecorations. When we first started coming here, the room was decorated in tropical greens and blues with a limestone floor. Now it is British colonial island with golds and navy and muted orange and a yellow marble floor,

> We’ve slept much more than the six that the beds sleep, with kids on the floor everywhere in sleeping bags. Last year all three kids came with their spouses and our six grandchildren and my sisters and her girls. We had to finally break down and get another room for the overflow.

> 2014 was special, though, because the unthinkable happened. After 28 years of staying in this room, the Marriott told us that the hotel would go through a full renovation of the lanais and the meeting rooms. We would have to have our conference somewhere else in Florida. We chose another Marriott in Orlando, but that wasn’t the biggest program.

> From their description of what would happen during the renovation, we thought that Lanai Room 193 may no longer exist, or at least in its current form. It looked as if they might tear the building down and put in a multi-story building. If it is like the other suites in the hotel, it might become a penthouse higher in the air. They asked us for years if we would like to stay in one of the penthouses in the two towers, but I’ve seen them and this room because of its location is the pick of the litter.

>I remember our last week there, and it was one filled with much nostalgia.

A fisheye view from the Bora Bora Suite looking northwest.

> All those years, all those meetings, all those friends, all those family members, some of which have since passed. Chuck’s mom passed over five years ago, as have both of my parents. One of the nieces passed away. Now Chuck and I are 73 and 63 respectively and are both gray.

Walking to dinner on Marco Island.

Then we found out that the room would exist when we returned only renovated. We were thrilled. It was good news indeed.

We were supposed to return to Marco last July for the conference, but the meetings rooms were unfinished. It will be 2018’before we return, and now Hurricane Irma’s eye crossed the island. We’re wondering how the room did.

The Marco Marriott is on its west coast, on a beautiful wide beach. But the Bora Bora suite is right at beach level. I’m sure Irma has filled it with beach water and sand.

A view due west from the Bora Bora Suite.

Like everything else, I guess Linai 193 must pass, too. Then again it might get totally renovated. We’ll know next July at the conference which is planned again for the Marco Marriott.

I wish all our friends who work there all the best in this ugly storm.

Sunsets on Marco Island are the best!

Planning a Visit to Disney World?

October 12, 2014 by oldageisnotforsissies54 Filed Under: Travel 1 Comment

We live in Florida, and we’ve been going to Disney World about once a year for over four decades. My daughter, who herself went to Disney a toddler, has a blog called Mommy2Bubba, where she gives tips on doing all the Disney World parks.

Her latest post is The Top Five Attractions for Toddlers at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.

Check it out!

And if you know someone headed to Disney in Orlando, steer them to Mommy2Bubba, where they will find lots of helpful hints.

Oh Hey, Friday – Another Top 5 – Highlights of a Durango Vacation

September 13, 2014 by oldageisnotforsissies54 Filed Under: Travel 1 Comment

It has been another great week of vacationing in Colorado. Here are the top five things we did this week. September Farm’s “Oh Hey, Friday!” strikes again.

1. Fished Texas Hole below the Navajo Dam on the San Juan River just over the state line in New Mexico, These are big trout, and I had a blast. We were there from about 10 a.m. until 5 pm with a guide named Mark from Duranglers in Durango. I even took a 30 minute nap after lunch on a grassy bank next to the river while Harold and the guide continued to fish. Wonderful day on a Great Trout Stream!

2. Found a beautiful scenic backroad between Durango and our borrowed house on 501 north of Bayfield, CO. It actually takes less time, too. The valleys and vistas are amazing on Colorado 240. We drove back when the sun was setting, which made the drive even more dramatic. Only problem was all the wildlife on the sides of the road. There were deer everywhere that evening.

3. Enjoyed a gin and tonic on the deck late one afternoon when an eight-point buck in velvet came to graze on the grass below. He stayed over a half hour. What a wonderful, peaceful moment.

4. Hiked a new trail which followed Vallecito Creek in the San Juan National Park. The trail turns into rocky ledges which snake around outcroppings of rock over a 100 feet up off the running creek below. A couple of times a pesky thought entered my mind, “What if there were an earthquake”? Bye, bye cruel world! But still awesome sights to see!!

5. Hung a hummingbird feeder, and before I got inside a hummingbird was already there feeding. Within a couple of days there were a half a dozen, some fighting to feed. I guess I need to purchase and hang another before they hurt each other.

Oh Hey, Friday! Here’s My Top Five!

September 6, 2014 by oldageisnotforsissies54 Filed Under: Travel 2 Comments

This is in response to September Farm and Karli and her “Oh Hey, Friday”, where she asks her readers/bloggers to write up a little post about five things–anythings.

Harold and I are in Bayfield, Colorado, where we are living for a month. We just got here today, after driving all the way from Florida, stopping to sightsee and visit relatives along the way. We left Florida on August 23rd, so we took an extended car trip.

Here’s my five highlights as we crossed the southern states of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and New Mexico.

1. If you have never been to the Flora-Bama Lounge, you have missed the ultimate “beach bar”. Harold and I decided to drive coast roads on our way to Bayfield, and we stopped here about 4 pm on a Sunday for a true slice of Americana and a gin and tonic. Located on the Florida/Alabama state line on Perdido Key, in one hall there was an old classic country trio playing and singing. The female singer did Patsy Cline songs and was great. In another hall was a band doing southern rock. Downstairs in the open air bar was a third band. We left Perdido Key in Alabama by ferry crossing Mobile Bay and arriving in Dauphin Island, Alabama.

3. When we crossed the state line driving from Mississippi into Louisiana, we drove west on old US 90. This is a stretch of road that time forgot. There was hardly any traffic, and the road or bridges haven’t been repaired in a long time. We loved the old metal bridges, which reminded Harold and I of our childhood. This is truly a wonderful stretch of blue highway. By the way before interstates, US 90 was the ultimate highway for crossing the American south. It ran from Jacksonville, Florida all the way to Los Angeles, California.

4. Another stretch of highway that time forgot runs as close to the coast as you can get between Abbeville, Louisiana and Port Arthur, TX. It reminded us of crossing the Florida Everglades on the Tamiami Trail when we were young. Hardly any traffic, no homes, no stores, no gas stations, and very little room to even pull off the road, SR 82 is raised and runs between marshes until you get to a seaside oil town named Cameron, LA., which was ravaged by another hurricane. Then we crossed a major canal on a ferry, and the scenery changed to miles of cattle pastures on one side and beaches on the other side. We crossed into Texas just before Port Arthur, whose downtown is a ghost town, literally. By the way we googled to read about these areas. You won’t find any tourist signs for information. Remember these are areas that time has forgotten.